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Deeplinks Blog

Deeplinks Blog

Congratulations and best of luck to our friends at the ACLU in their new lawsuit challenging the government's use of "National Security Letters" (NSLs). Authorized under the USA PATRIOT Act, NSLs are secret legal demands for your private records that are issued directly by the Justice Department...

On Good Friday evening, after everyone, including its own spokespeople, had gone home, American Airlines quietly admitted that in 2002, it secretly transferred passenger data to government contractors. Specifically, the airline provided 1.2 million passenger records to contractors developing prototypes for the Transportation Security Administration's (TSA) controversial CAPPS...

Declan McCullagh rightly points out in his latest CNET piece on Gmail that EFF opposes California Senator Liz Figueroa's (D-Freemont) poorly conceived anti-Gmail bill (PDF) -- but not because we oppose any and all legislation to address the privacy concerns raised by new technology. A bill to target...

CNET's Declan McCullagh this week picked apart the misguided Gmail bill (PDF) introduced before the California legislature by State Senator Liz Figueroa (D-Freemont). The upshot? The bill is so broadly written, it would do things like "make it illegal for a California technology company to offer a...

The RIAA has finally seen the light with regard to its "Clean Slate" program, which offered false amnesty, or shamnesty, to people who admitted to file sharing. Citing the success of its "education" campaign, the group has abruptly cancelled the program. "Clean Slate" promised that...

Just over a year ago, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) issued a policy statement condemning government-mandated technical protection measures for digital content. "The imposition of technical mandates is not the best way to serve the long-term interests of record companies, technology companies, and consumers," read the statement...

Security Focus (hyperlinks, mine): "A one-time enforcer in DirecTV's anti-piracy campaign is suing his ex-employer for wrongful discharge, after he allegedly resigned rather than continue to prosecute the company's controversial war against buyers of hacker-friendly smart card equipment. John Fisher, a former police officer, alleges in a...

danah boyd has a long and worthwhile post offering her vision of what civil rights activists should do about the development of very cool technologies that nevertheless leave users vulnerable to privacy violations: "Let me dig out of this hole and return to the civil rights activists. As...

As we noted last week, Google has introduced a new beta email service called "Gmail" that raises a number of privacy concerns. While the media has largely focused on the fact that Gmail will scan the contents of your email messages in order to target ads, the more serious...

Google's announcement last week of its new Gmail email service sparked widespread speculation about the possible impact it would have on users' privacy. Among the questions EFF has been asking: What information would Google pull from email? Would it log this information? For how long? Could your Gmail address...

Today, we filed comments (PDF) with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to warn against overbroad interpretation of the CAN-SPAM Act -- new federal legislation aimed at stemming the current tidal wave of spam. We are pessimistic that the law will be effective in that respect, and...

An attorney lets his 10 year-old install a computer game. Here's what happens: So my 10 year-old took the lead and started installing the software. When he got to the license agreement, he quipped, "Let's see, it says I have to click 'accept' to continue. Well DUH! It's not...

Reuters: "'This is not just 'buyer beware.' Consumers should be aware that there's a vast violation of European law occurring here,' said Simon Davies, director of Privacy International, a citizens' group with offices in Britain and the United States. [...] Privacy groups said they were also concerned about Google's...